[Jo]

I am really hoping someone here can help me with this. I'm at the end of my
rope. I've been developing an Index for a very large multi-file manual for a
client. It was originally designed in Word 2003 for hardcopy printing. At the
last minute the client decided they wanted to convert the Word files to PDF
and put it online. So I'm creating an Index in HTML/CSS that loads the
appropriate document for the requested section, chapter and sub-topic.
Straight HTML links formatted with pretty basic CSS.

The Word documents are being converted into PDF using Acrobat 7 (which my
colleague has; I don't have access to it on my computer). I am creating an
HTML Index listing that links to a particular page within the PDF file, where
the user can find the word/phrase/topic. There are 114 document files in all
(Word/PDF).

Here's the problem: Trying to convert Word to PDF is proving to be a
MONSTER! :-( The Word footers contain page numbers along with some text,
both in separate text boxes. But when the document gets converted to PDF, the
page numbers are missing, sometimes along with the text. Or they appear on
page 3 but not on pages 1 or 2. Or something equally infuriating!

My colleague and I have played with it and found the only way to get
everthing to translate into PDF is to completely reformat the Word footers
without text boxes, but this involves a huge amount of changing various
footer/page settings to get it to behave. And because it involves selecting
objects, I can't macro it to save time. Therefore these changes would have to
be done manually on 114 files!

I tried creating a template out of the Word document that I got to work,
hoping I could just pour the content into it from the old documents, but the
styles don't seem to be consistent across all documents, so the pagination
gets thrown off -- hence, all my hours of work putting an Index together goes
down the tubes.

Is there anyone out there who has any experience with this and could help?
Please? I would name my firstborn child after you if I thought I might ever
have one. ;-)

Jo

[Stefan Blom]

Try converting the text boxes to frames; you can use a button on the
Text Box tab of the Format | Text Box dialog box. Frames usually
behave better, at least if they have fields in them (page numbers are
a type of field).

If I understood correctly, you are creating the index outside of Word?
See if that application includes a way to update the links.

Note, however, that WordHeretic provides a way to create a hyperlinked
index in Word, which could be helpful. See
http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/Tools.html.

You may also want to ask in a newsgroup devoted to your PDF software,
if there is one.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"Jo" wrote in message
...
I am really hoping someone here can help me with this. I'm at the
end of my
rope. I've been developing an Index for a very large multi-file
manual for a
client. It was originally designed in Word 2003 for hardcopy
printing. At the
last minute the client decided they wanted to convert the Word files
to PDF
and put it online. So I'm creating an Index in HTML/CSS that loads
the
appropriate document for the requested section, chapter and
sub-topic.
Straight HTML links formatted with pretty basic CSS.

The Word documents are being converted into PDF using Acrobat 7
(which my
colleague has; I don't have access to it on my computer). I am
creating an
HTML Index listing that links to a particular page within the PDF
file, where
the user can find the word/phrase/topic. There are 114 document
files in all
(Word/PDF).

Here's the problem: Trying to convert Word to PDF is proving to be a
MONSTER! :-( The Word footers contain page numbers along with some
text,
both in separate text boxes. But when the document gets converted to
PDF, the
page numbers are missing, sometimes along with the text. Or they
appear on
page 3 but not on pages 1 or 2. Or something equally infuriating!

My colleague and I have played with it and found the only way to get
everthing to translate into PDF is to completely reformat the Word
footers
without text boxes, but this involves a huge amount of changing
various
footer/page settings to get it to behave. And because it involves
selecting
objects, I can't macro it to save time. Therefore these changes
would have to
be done manually on 114 files!

I tried creating a template out of the Word document that I got to
work,
hoping I could just pour the content into it from the old documents,
but the
styles don't seem to be consistent across all documents, so the
pagination
gets thrown off -- hence, all my hours of work putting an Index
together goes
down the tubes.

Is there anyone out there who has any experience with this and could
help?
Please? I would name my firstborn child after you if I thought I
might ever
have one. ;-)

Jo